Counterintuitive, I know, but the word is actually "chic" instead of "sheik". I had no idea until I had closed captioning on the TV one day and read/heard it at the same time. Since it's your wife's profession, I thought you might be interested in that info.

Thanks for mansplaining! Now I truly know how women are treated, since my own lived experiences were so obviously false.

WHERE DO WE EXPERIENCE WOMEN'S VALUE BEING TIED TO HOW EFFECTIVELY THEY CAN BE SEXUALIZED? Dude, look in the comments section of ANY POST with a picture of a woman on any sub that isn't a majority female audience. You're either going to see comments with men saying they'd hit it, or you're going to see comments with men saying she's too fat/ugly to be desirable. BUT NO, WOMEN TOTALLY AREN'T EVER TAUGHT THAT THEIR WORTH IS TIED TO THEIR SEXUAL DESIRABILITY.

Holy fuck get out of here with your "I know more about what women deal with than women do" bullshit.

Or, like, maybe smaller regions... say, 50 of them? And let them all do what's best for their people. But keep some sort of overarching entity to keep the peace between them, and allow free travel and commerce between them. And provide unified safety for all, and regulate a shared currency. Just to keep things simple for everyone.

Not totally stuck; the company will buy back whatever you don't sell whenever you decide you're done being a consultant. I have a few friends who have become consultants and all of them made back their initial investment within 3 months and are happy as hell.

Try headphones. Put on some music and sing along in your mind. Or out loud; screw it, do what works for you.

Also, try overriding your subconscious mantra. Sounds like you're getting yourself pretty worked up over the whole thing and it's self-perpetuating. Force yourself to think things like, "You are okay. This is not that bad. You can do this. Relax. Breathe. Nothing will hurt you." So on and so forth. Your subconscious is screaming, but I've found that I can quiet that screaming by talking myself down with soothing language. It sounds corny, but if it works, who cares?

Did you do the thing where you made a pillow of a towel so you could just drool into it since swallowing saliva was way out of the question? I did that when I had mono. Also managed to have a double ear infection at the same time. Oh, and I was away at college with no one to advocate for me so the only painkillers I had were over-the-counter ibuprofen or acetaminophen. Wouldn't recommend.

Ditto. I was 5. I have no idea how much it actually hurt because I blocked out that memory, but I do know I screamed so hard I was vomiting blood because I had ruptured blood vessels in my throat, and it took five nurses plus my dad to hold me down. I'm pretty sure I went feral.

You must be blessed with funny, witty friends! I have many of both -- people with great storytelling skills, and people who just could not sell a joke if their life depended on it. It's not a skill everyone has.